Where I remember old things.

GAME SHOWS

Now I know that this is from only last month so it’s not very nostalgic, and another Christmas has now come and gone, but it was such a terrific TV moment that I just had to do a piece on it. It’s yet another celebrity edition of game show Pointless, hosted by Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman, where you are rewarded for your knowledge that would be useless to you in just about any other situation, and they’ve put up the tree specially.

The four celebrity teams taking part are Dave Hill and Rob Davis, Roger McGough and Sally Lindsay, Jamelia and Sonia, and the reason that I am doing this piece, Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward of Bananarama fame, making their first appearance on the show since November 2013 when they made the final but missed out on the jackpot by just one point, something that clearly still haunts them all these years later. Can they go one better this time?

I should also point out that Brix Smith who featured in a piece that I did a while back when I found a picture of her in a pub very close to where I live in Bethnal Green alongside none other than Miss Siobhan Fahey that got me very excited appeared on Pointless Celebrities in April 2016 as part of a fashion-themed edition, but she got knocked out in the second round and didn’t win, oh dear. Today’s jackpot is £2,500.

The first round is about cities in the show, can you identify these places at wintertime. Sara and Keren go through with a score of 88, the lowest in the round, and Dave and Rob are knocked out. Next is festive music, synonyms of Christmas carols to be precise. After a couple of good answers Sara and Keren progress with a score of 40 (again the lowest score in the round), and Roger and Sally are knocked out.

The next round is Sara and Keren v Jamelia and Sonia (something of a surprise considering how useless Jamelia was on ITV’s Tipping Point: Lucky Stars recently). First up, pictures of famous people with Father Christmas. Sara and Keren win this 41-65. Second is members of Monty Python, and as Sara and Keren win this 22-96, they don’t even need to go to the third question and they are into the final again and maintain their unbeaten record!

For making the final, they win a Pointless trophy! I presume they would already have one from last time, maybe they could give this one to a friend or just throw it in the bin. They choose the category Things Inbetween. They make their choices on countries alphabetically between the Marshall Islands and the Solomon Islands, and go for Rwanda, Papua New Guinea and Samoa. They could be in with a chance here!

Rwanda scores four points, and Papua New Guinea scores one. This is their last chance with Samoa. And this time, well look at that, they go all the way and get their Pointless answer and they have won £2,500 for charity, congratulations! That really is terrific. And just when you thought that it couldn’t get any more exciting, the show closes with a song from Alexander.

It seems that Sara and Keren really do know their stuff, and just when I thought that they couldn’t be any more terrific they start winning game shows. And they must enjoy it as they have appeared on another one since in January 2019, this time on BBC2’s Celebrity Antiques Road Trip where again they were very entertaining. Maybe it could be a new career for them if their next album flops.

Around this time of year I like to do an update, and recently I did a list of the TV shows that I have yet to review on this blog, so here is a now rather long list of the shows that I have reviewed already. If you like the look of anything that you might find interesting or think will bring back memories, why not take a look at the piece, it’d be great to know what you think!

And along with all that, I am always on the lookout for things on YouTube, and I also plan to review more things including adverts, pop music, computer games and so on. So if anything on the list looks like something you might be interested in, why not spread the word because it’ll be great to get as many people as possible have a look at these pieces.

It’s time to take a look back at the year. It’s rather odd to think that 2018 has now happened and been consigned to history, as I still think that it’s about 25 years into the future. Four years on from starting this blog I am satisfied with what I have achieved. I feel that I have settled in and I have now done almost 700 pieces, including about 150 this year, here’s a look at some of my highlights of the year.

There was plenty of excitement in pop music as the story I told about Bananarama on here that I think will always be my favourite blog piece took some further twists this year. Firstly, I found a picture on Instagram of Siobhan in a pub that I know that surprised me (and she was alongside Brix Smith who definitely had an interesting music career in the 80s too). I still honestly can’t believe that I have walked the same path in life (I don’t mean our careers of course, I mean literally the same Bethnal Green streets) as someone who fascinated me (along with many other people) with their chart-topping single back in 1992.

Not long after, a picture appeared of Siobhan alongside Marcella from Shakespear’s Sister, by all accounts the first time they had seen one another for 25 years which was really something unexpected. That all of this has actually happened still makes me happy. It’s good to know that she’s still out there but I haven’t looked at Siobhan’s Instagram page for a while now because as you see I usually get more than I bargained for…

I also did a three-part series looking back at Bananarama’s hit singles, and I reviewed Keren and Sara’s appearance on BBC1’s Pointless Celebrities. Well five years on they appeared on the show again, and managed to maintain their unbeaten record as they reached the final and this time they won the money! They made great records in the 80s, they’ve been to Bethnal Green, they win TV game shows… what’s not to admire? And it seems that there’s a new tour and album on the way too, I don’t think Siobhan is involved in these though, but who knows maybe I’ll see her in the pub one day.

I was also surprised by just how many 80s pop stars had their 60th birthdays this year. Siobhan was one of them in September, and 13 days later another one was Danielle Dax. To celebrate this I decided to do another piece about her career because I thought that her work was fascinating and there should be more about her online, and this received a positive response. After completing it I found another article about her in Number One magazine in 1984, with a full-page colour picture and everything. I also found an interview from the same time where she said that one of her icons was Cruella de Vil and I honestly don’t know if she was being serious or not.

Oh, and remember when I found a picture of Danielle from a year or two ago at a gig in Dalston where I said she had bright blue hair which I thought was odd, but I teased people by using a picture of Stormer from great 80s cartoon Jem instead? Well recently when searching online I found a picture captioned “Danielle Dax, 2018”, which is the best post-1991 picture that I have seen of her. So if you really do want to know what she looks like nowadays…

I also looked back at the hits of 80s music stars Haysi Fantaysee and Hazel O’Connor. Not long after I received a tweet from the woman herself who also retweeted the link to the piece, making it become my most-viewed blog piece that I did this year, I was thrilled and it made all the work I put into it worthwhile.I didn’t tag her in the link so there’s the positive side of vanity searching I suppose, what an endorsement. Well it’s more than Kate Garner did.

I also came across two shows this year that I previously had no knowledge of that I really enjoyed. The first of these was ITV’s drama and music series Jangles which starred Hazel O’Connor (I also noticed recently that one episode features another early-80s singer who was Honey Bane of “Turn Me On Turn Me Off” fame).I must admit that I really became fond of the bizarre character Herald (“obliging those who wish to blow their minds…“) and he is now one of my unsung TV heroes.

The other one was BBC2’s The Wolvis Family, an early-90s sitcom about a rather bizarre family that was described by the Radio Times Guide To TV Comedy as “a forgotten gem”, and that’s a statement I can’t argue with, it definitely deserves a DVD release. And the character of Mr Wolvis became another one of my favourites. Other long-forgotten comedy shows I enjoyed reviewing this year included BBC2’s It’s A Mad World World World World, ITV’s Not With A Bang and Channel 5’s Hospital!

As for game shows, I decided to review Quizmania as Greg Scott and Chuck Thomas who were among the hosts are both following me on Twitter and I hoped that it might catch their attention. I was very flattered that they both approved of the piece, with Greg saying that he was pleased by how many people still remember the show so long after it ended and Chuck giving it a like.

I also reviewed the revivals of The Crystal Maze and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (who knows, maybe they’ll revive Blockbusters one day…), along with some American versions of classic game shows including Cross Wits and Play Your Cards Right. Also this year we had to say goodbye to some familiar faces, including game show hosts Jim Bowen and Dale Winton, and children’s TV stars Barry Chuckle and Geoffrey Hayes. Thanks for lots of great memories.

I also looked back at a few other interesting shows including ITV’s Wake Up London, BBC Choice’s Hotlinks, the news coverage of the death of Diana, I admitted that I did admired the ITV Weathergens, and it was also enjoyable reviewing lots of old adverts. CBBC and CITV shows that I reviewed included Radio Roo and Mega Mania. There are plenty more reviews of classic TV memories planned to come in 2019.

My blog has had over 41,000 views this year. All that it remains for me to say is thanks for reading wherever you may be, and special thanks to everyone who liked and commented, it is much appreciated to know that you enjoy what I do!

This is a game show that was shown on Channel 4 in the evening in the early-90s, it was based on an American format shown on MTV which might explain its rather rowdy mix of comedy and questions which made it rather cult viewing with younger viewers. The host was Anthony Wilson who was usually assisted by Phil “Gilbert” Cornwell or none other than Frank Sidebottom who provided the laughs.

Three oh-so-crazy contestants took part who wanted to show off what they knew about pop culture, and the first round consisted of them pressing the buttons on their remote control to select one of the nine channels that was concealing a rather quirky question on categories including “How Stupid Can You Get?”, which were worth either one or two points for a correct answer. If they got it right they could choose the next channel. Also above the contestants was a big finger that lit up when they buzzed in.

There was also some woman playing the keyboard along with all this, and when a contestant chose a channel that contained a question about something on Channel 4, she rather appropriately would play the “Fourscore” theme music which was a rather good touch. Also, one channel contained a question that would be asked by Frank Sidebottom.

Round two had quickfire questions on the buzzer for one point each. Round three went back to choosing channels. At the end of this round, the lowest-scorer was eliminated by vanishing off the style in a similar style to BBC1’s Brainstorm that I reviewed recently, and a similar effect was also used in Channel 5’s Topranko! that was also hosted by Wilson about a decade after this.

Then there was a rather hard question, and during the contestants’ thinking time there were some more comedy sketches, Caroline Aherne, Brenda Gilhooly, Sean Lock and John Thomson were among those who joined in. They had to bid some of their precious points on whether they got the right answer, usually they didn’t. The final round was multiple-choice questions on the buzzer for two points each. Again the lowest scorer was eliminated and Phil started doing his Mick Jagger impression for a nice change.

The remaining contestant goes into the final where they are strapped to a wheel. They then spin round for 40 seconds and they have to look at nine screens. If they can correctly identify the images on all the screens, they win the fancy star prize of something like a shed. Remote Control ran for a couple of years and was an Action Time/Granada co-production. There’s no doubt that it contained plenty of anarchic fun that definitely livened up a Tuesday evening.

After Channel 5’s long-running daytime game show BrainTeaser ended with something of a scandal, it was decided to launch a new show that was very similar which also featured various word puzzles but without the damaged reputation. Wordplay was shown live in the afternoon in a 50-minute slot, and there were two hosts who alternated who were Jenni Falconer and Jenny Powell.

Four contestants took part in six rounds, with games that were rather similar to ones in shows including Catchword, Chain Letters, and even Cryptogram that was shown on Channel 5 about a decade before this. Contestants had to buzz in if they knew the correct answer, get it wrong though, and they were frozen out of the next question in the old Bob’s Full House style.

Round one (along with the endless background music) is Word Jumble, simply unscramble the word (the category is given as well) and score one point. Round two is AKA, now things have to be guessed from being described as synonyms, with two points for a correct answer. The contestant with the lowest score at this stage is eliminated (for the moment at least, as will become clear).

Round three is Word Smuggle. The scores are reset to zero, and a word has to be spotted in the phrase, with one point for a correct answer. Round four is Hangman. This time the clues are revealed one letter at a time, with two points on offer. Again, the lowest-scoring contestant is eliminated, and around this point there’s yet another plug for the viewers phone-in competition.

Round five is Invisible Link. The scores are reset to zero again and the two remaining contestants have to spot the one word that can go before or after the three others for one point. Round six is Word Ladder. This time the contestants play individually, there are 60 seconds on the clock and they have to add or take away letters based on the clues to create a chain, with two points for every correct answer. The highest-scoring contestant at this point goes into the final.

The eliminated contestants do have another go though on Wordplay Extra, a shorter version that is shown later in the afternoon, presumably if they have run out of films or editions of Neighbours. The winner of this can return the next day to try again. The final is called Safe Cracker. There are 90 seconds on the clock and the finalist has to play one example of all of the previous six rounds (this time in an order that they can choose).

Giving a right answer stops the clock, wins them £50, and gives them one number of the seven-digit code to open the safe which contains the star prize. So if they get all six right, they win because there is only one place they can put the seventh digit in the code. Get five right and it becomes a 50/50 decision, and so on. Also, the jackpot rolls over for every day it isn’t won, but it’s usually around £2,000, plus the money won in the final.

Wordplay looked like it was going to establish itself in the daytime slot, but it ran for only one series, and rather disappointingly in the decade since it ended Channel 5 have just about given up on making game shows for any timeslot. It wasn’t exactly groundbreaking stuff, but it was a good effort which tried out a few ideas and must have kept a few people watching.

This is another 80s game show that I don’t really remember watching that much of at the time, but I’ve since seen enough of it to consider it worthy of a review here. Child’s Play was a show that was based on American format and it was hosted by Michael Aspel. It was a chance to see if adults really did understand what was going on in the minds of children.

Two teams of two took part, consisting of a contestant along with a celebrity, and since it was the mid-80s, people could be expected to be paired with the likes of Kenneth Williams or Bernie Winters. Children aged 5-11 from across the country are asked to describe the definitions of various words, and the teams have to guess what they are, although it’s not as straightforward as it seems, as children can have an unusual outlook on life.

In the first round, a child described something, and there was 15 points on offer if they got it right. If they don’t though, it’s passed over to the other team with another child’s description for 10 points. If they don’t know, it goes back to the first team along with a third description for five points. Also, the children appeared on a really big screen, which made the adults in the studio look tiny by comparison, as if a seven-year-old boy had just taken over the world and was making an announcement. Or maybe that’s just me.

Then there was the Triple Play round. This time the children were asked to write down definitions of words, and contestants could have up to three clues. One team member was nominated to play, they had 45 seconds on the clock, and there were ten points for every correct answer. Next was the bonus round, where more than one child describes a word, one for each team, and getting this one right earned 50 points.

The final round was Fast Play. This time a child gave a definition, if the teams thought that they knew it, they could buzz in and interrupt them, with 20 points for a correct answer. If they get it wrong, it’s passed over to the other team who can hear the rest of the definition. When time is up, the losing contestant takes away a trophy, while the winning contestant gets a trophy along with a hamper full of goodies.

Child’s Play ran for almost five years on ITV, which was much longer than the original American version did, and it was usually shown on Saturday nights. Although the format isn’t exactly the same, watching some editions I couldn’t help but be reminded of Small Talk, the enjoyable BBC1 90s game show that I do remember from the time that also featured children talking about things in an unusual way.